Filter By:

Be Lightning Ready by the Winter ’20 Release!

If there’s ever been a time to get serious about Lightning, it’s NOW. Starting in October 2019 with the Winter ’20 release, Salesforce will turn on Lightning Experience for all orgs on a rolling basis. When it’s turned on, standard profile users and custom profile users with the Lightning Experience User permission enabled will see the ‘Switch to Lightning Experience’ link in Salesforce Classic and be automatically switched into Lightning Experience on a regular basis. Get more on the details of this transition here.

As a Salesforce Admin, we want you to be in control of this process. Get started now so you have ten months to plan a smooth transition. If you have questions or concerns or are interested in opting out, please contact support.

We are excited to help you take advantage of all the innovation being built into Lightning. Lightning has come a long way since it first launched in 2014 and will continue to improve, and empower you to build amazing Salesforce experiences. Just look at the roadmap! Who’s excited for object creator?!

Admin Holiday Treats: Counting Down Our 15 Favorite Tips from 2018

Happy Holidays, #AwesomeAdmins! 2018 is about to draw to a close, and we’re looking back at all we’ve learned, shared and given back this year. 2018 has been packed with innovation and ways for Admins to champion productivity.

Looking back, what did you learn this year that you’re excited to leverage or explore further? The team has been reflecting and remembering all the Admin ‘treats’ we’ve explored this past year, some practical, some technical, all plenty of fun!

Here are some of our favorites:

15. Did you know…

You can personalize your own lightning navigation, and your users can too? Learn more Lightning productivity tips for your users here.

2. Faithful friends gather near, and far

1. Help others unwrap their potential

No matter where you are on your #AwesomeAdmin journey, you have something valuable to share & teach. Find the spaces where you can help others along their Admin trail.

Be sure to share the Admin-themed holiday spirit by joining us on Twitter! Starting December 17, we’ll be counting down to 2019 with a treat a day! And, we want to hear from you – what are your favorite treats from 2018? Be sure to use #AwesomeAdmin so we can share them. Cheers to a great year, #AwesomeAdmins! 🎉

An Admin’s Introduction to Lightning Web Components

Lightning Web Components represents an exciting change for how Developers can build on Salesforce, and as Admins it is important to be aware and educated on changes that impact roadmap planning across declarative and programmatic building. As the architects of Salesforce implementations, Admins need to understand all of the elements that contribute to a finished product (your Salesforce environment) even if you aren’t going to be building those particular elements. So let’s take a look at Lightning Web Components and what it means for Admins!

What is Lightning Web Components?

Lightning Web Components is a new programming model for building Lightning components. This model leverages breakthroughs in web development from the last 5 years (since we launched Lightning) and aligns to the common standards that have been created. With Lightning Web Components any JavaScript Developer can build on Salesforce, which means the community of Developers you can build with just got bigger!

What Does This Mean for Me?

The short answer? Faster experiences, a larger Developer community, and an updated experience for your Developers. The way you work with Lightning Components and the App Builder won’t change. Developers will be able to translate their skills to building on Salesforce, and Salesforce Developers who learn Lightning Web Components will be building skills that are transferrable to other technologies.

Whether or not you plan to build Lightning Components, as an Admin you can benefit from this new programming model with faster performance, increased productivity of developers working with tools and standards they are already familiar with, and growing the community of Developers with skills that can translate to Salesforce.

How Does This Impact My Salesforce Environment?

Which of these most closely describes your Salesforce implementation?

We are in lightning and/or classic, but we don’t have any custom code:

If you don’t have any custom development in your environment today, but may in the future, this is a great time to review the Lightning Web Components resources on this post so you can build any future development using this new programming model.

We are in lightning, and we have custom components:

If you already have custom Aura components, these will continue to work as before. Lightning Components built before the Spring ’19 release are known as Aura components, Components built after Spring ’19 can be either Lightning Web Components or Aura Components. Your Developer can build new components with Aura or Lightning Web Components. Your Aura and Lightning Web Components can coexist and work side by side. Over time, you may choose to migrate your Aura components to Lightning Web Components to take advantage of web standards and faster speeds, but you don’t have to.

Components used on Lightning pages with increased load time, you can check page performance with the Lightning usage metrics

Components that are used throughout many apps and pages

Components that are currently in planning

How Do Admins Work With Lightning Web Components?

Almost the same way you have been working with Lightning Components up until now! Admins can work with Lightning Web Components in exactly the same way you have been working with Aura Components in all the places where Lightning Web Components are supported. Components built with Lightning Web Components will be available to add to your pages via the App Builder. You can also include Lightning Web Components in your deployments using all of our most common tools including the declarative change management tools Packaging and Change Sets.

Lightning Web Components are not currently available in all of the same places as Aura Components. We will be working to support Lightning Web Components in Quick Actions, Custom Templates, Lightning Flow Screens, and Lightning for Email in future releases. Lightning Web Components are not supported in Developer Console, but you can view and work with Lightning Web Components in Visual Studio Code or your favorite IDE.

Lightning Web Components represent an exciting new chapter for our community of builders! With Lightning Web Components you can help bring the latest Web Standards to your implementation and help your Developers be more productive, delight your end users with performance improvements, and the interoperability of these components means that you can adopt Lightning Web Components the way that works best for your implementation. Take a look at some of the resources listed below, and make sure to share this news with your Developers!

Transform Your Org Through Conversation with Megan Himan

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re talking to Megan Himan, CEO and Founder of BrightStep Partners, to find out how her work with nonprofits have helped them transform what they do and what they’re capable of.

Join us as we talk about how to connect more effectively with leadership around their goals, why we should think of ourselves as managers, and how to own your role as an Awesome Admin.

You shouldsubscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Megan Himan.

Learning Salesforce when there were only 4 objects.

About 15 years ago, Megan was managing a nonprofit in Oakland. “I said I have this crazy idea, someone told me about Salesforce and I want to implement it for this organization,” Megan says, “which was revolutionary for our organization and also for my career.”

Megan originally heard about Salesforce through her husband because he was working Software as a Service, and had heard that the platform was free for nonprofits. After she got the green light to implement it, there was a lot to do in the days before Community Groups and Trailhead. “I’m a tinkerer,” Megan says, “so I really kind of built the platform and then I started teaching other organizations how to do it.” You learn by teaching, and so getting the opportunity to share skills helped her solidify her knowledge.

The conversations that engage leaders.

These days, Megan is a Salesforce consultant for nonprofits, “we come in talking about Salesforce and we leave talking about organizational transformation,” she says. “I could be the best technologist in the world but if I couldn’t learn how to have these conversations it didn’t mean anything.” So the focus of Megan’s work as a consultant is going beyond the technical skills to have those important conversations.

“My twelve-year-old son loves this game called Fortnite,” Megan says, “and he tells me about it in excruciating detail, to the point where my eyes glaze over and I don’t care and want to move on. I think sometimes when we’re passionate about something like Salesforce or the technology we can do that too, to our leaders and other executives and coworkers.”

Maybe the details of her son’s Fortnite game aren’t that interesting, but if he were to tell her about how he’s learning collaboration and problem-solving skills she’d get interested because those are skills she wants him to acquire. The same thing is true of conversations with executive leaders: you need to understand what they care about, and if you don’t then ask them. “OK, I’m getting all these Salesforce requests for the next quarter. I want to make sure that whatever I’m working on aligns with what’s most important for you in this coming quarter. It doesn’t have to be inside of Salesforce, but can you tell me more about what are the things you’re thinking about this quarter?” You can always then come back and talk about the technical pieces in the context of what they care about.

Thinking about yourself as a manager.

“One of the things that’s been transformative for me is to think about myself as a Salesforce admin as a manager, because even though we don’t manage anyone directly,” Megan says, “we need to have influence over others.” We manage a product, which is Salesforce, but we actually manage all sorts of business processes.

In order to do that, first, we need to stem the chaos by setting up some system to tame the tide of requests. That could be Salesforce Cases or a Google sheet, but you need to have some way of tracking and prioritizing requests. The other shift that needs to be happy is to “think of ourselves as technologists who don’t necessarily have all the answers but can know where to find them,” Megan says. Finally, you need to look forward at what it is you’re trying to accomplish and asking those key Why questions of yourself.

Put on your Awesome Admin cape.

The best leaders aren’t afraid of making mistakes. Megan touches dozens of orgs per year, “and it’s not a question of if I’m going to make a mistake, it’s a question of when I’m going to make a mistake.” So she backs up data like crazy to give her the leeway to try new things and experiment. “Doing courageous things means I’m going to make a mistake,” she says, “we think leaders aren’t afraid but it’s not true, they are afraid but they just keep moving forward anyway.”

“The way we talk about ourselves matters, it feeds into that confidence piece and that risk-taking piece,” Megan says, “that’s why I love the term Awesome Admin because it puts more power and courage in that origin story.” Accidental Admin can be a bit of a loaded term, and Megan thinks it can contribute to imposter syndrome. Instead, put on that superhero cape and be an Awesome Admin with courage and confidence.

Love our podcasts?

Full Show Transcript

Gillian Bruce: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins Podcast where we talk about product, community, and careers to help you become a more awesome Salesforce Admin. I’m Gillian Bruce and today we are talking to an amazing member of our Salesforce Ohana, we are talking to Megan Himan. Now, Megan is in the Bay Area so it was easy to meet up with her in person and I wanted to chat with Megan ’cause she has been working to help non profits harness the power of Salesforce to help transform the way that they make an impact in the world for a long time. She has been working with Salesforce since the days where there were only four objects. Can you imagine only having four objects to work with in Salesforce? Well, Megan’s experience has really helped her transform a lot of organizations and talk about transforming careers and I wanted to get Megan on the podcast to talk about how we as Salesforce Admins can use our words to help transform our organizations, our careers, and use those words on top of those technical skills that we’ve gained.

Gillian Bruce: So, without further ado, let’s get Megan on the podcast.

Gillian Bruce: Megan, welcome to the podcast.

Meghan Himan: Thanks, it’s so great to be here.

Gillian Bruce: I am so happy to have you on, we’ve been talking about doing this for a long, long, long time so I’m really happy that we’re here, we’re doing it and well I may know you pretty well. I’d love to introduce you a little bit more to the audience and one of the questions I like to do that is to ask you, Megan, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Meghan Himan: I love this question. So I was thinking about this and I think I wanted to be Lin-Manuel Miranda before that was a thing. So, I had this tape recorder and I had a instrumental song I wrote lyrics to it and I would go … and like rewind on this tape recorder and then I had my friend sing the lyrics that I wrote for the song so I think that was like my biggest dream. Maybe it’ll still happen some day, I don’t know.

Gillian Bruce: You never know, you never know but that’s really fun so okay so making new music, cutting your own tracks with a tape recorder, that’s pretty awesome.

Meghan Himan: Yes, if I could find one that would be amazing to play it back.

Gillian Bruce: Or I’ll ping you, I’ll ping you back for that. We’ll put that in the podcast at some point. Well, so how did you go from kind of cutting your own tracks to using your amazing cassette tape skills to now working the Salesforce ecosystem? Tell me a little bit about that journey.

Meghan Himan: So, I was managing a non profit in Oakland, this was about 15 years ago. I had an amazing boss named Michael McPherson and I said, “I have this crazy idea, someone told me about Salesforce, I want to implement it for this organization,” and he said, “Yes,” which was just revolutionary for our organization and also for my career of course. There were four objects then; leads, accounts, opportunities, and contacts and it’s changed so much since then but my passion for the product and the ecosystem has not diminished.

Gillian Bruce: How did you come up with this crazy idea to bring Salesforce to that organization at that time?

Meghan Himan: My husband actually told me about it, ’cause he was working in software as a service and said, “I heard that they’re giving away Salesforce for free to non profits,” and I think that’s really the thing that all of us need an invitation. You know we don’t know what we don’t know about and just how we can do that for others is something I think about all the time.

Gillian Bruce: Okay, so here you are, your crazy idea, you got the green light, now you’re in Salesforce. How did you learn yourself to get those Salesforce skills to actually make it work for your organization?

Meghan Himan: I’m a tinkerer, like lots of folks so I learn by doing and at that time there wasn’t really community groups or Trailhead or anything so I really kind of built the platform and then I started teaching other organizations how to do it, and I think we also learn a lot by teaching other folks and I’d encourage others even if you don’t feel like you’re ready to teach, like you don’t know enough, to start teaching anyways and you’ll be amazed at both how much you do know and also how much you learn in the process as well.

Gillian Bruce: Now I completely agree with that, that’s something that I know I talk about with my colleagues all the time. I think for me, when I finally started really, really getting some of these basic things about Salesforce was when they said, “Hey, Gillian go teach a workshop,” and so I had to understand it in a whole different kind of way and explain it in a bunch of different ways, and then you realize oh okay, I do get this, I do have a way to share this, I do have a way to help other people understand it and the way they understood it helps me get it, right? So that’s really cool.

Meghan Himan: Exactly.

Gillian Bruce: That’s great, so what do you do now in the Salesforce ecosystem?

Meghan Himan: So I’m a Salesforce consultant for non profit organizations, which I love because we come in talking about Salesforce and we leave talking about organizational transformation and also just helping the leaders within those organizations really gain their skills and confidence.

Gillian Bruce: So you’re working with non profits, that also must feel pretty empowering because a lot of the work that non profit organizations typically do aren’t necessarily focused on the technology and they’re not focused on making a thing, they’re focused on making an impact. So you get to help them amplify their impact with technology, which is pretty cool.

Meghan Himan: Which is amazing and it’s also fun because it’s a huge puzzle because there’s so many different ways to do it, it’s not about like optimizing one particular process, it’s like really digging deep into all the ways that the organization can have impact, from fundraising to program management, so it’s really fun.

Gillian Bruce: That’s awesome. So, one of the things that I know you’re very passionate about and part of the reason I wanted to have you on podcast is you talk a lot about the power of conversation. Something you think about a lot, you’ve presented it at Dreamforce several times about this, tell me a little bit more about this idea of conversation and the agency that it has to kind of affect this transformation or change. Give me an overview.

Meghan Himan: Well, like most lessons I’ve learned in my life it came from a hard situation that really forced me to wake up and I was giving an end user training session to an organization in DC and there was like 15 people in the room and one person just was like, “This isn’t gonna work for me, I’m not gonna do this,” and just kind of dragging their feet. And everybody’s frustration was rising and so was mine and so I had a meeting the next day with the executive director and I was like, “I need to be a truth teller here,” and I told this person like, “If you don’t get this person under control your whole Salesforce investment is gonna go down the drain.” And she essentially fired me at that point.

Gillian Bruce: Ouch.

Meghan Himan: And I didn’t regret having the conversation because I knew that that was the thing that needed to … I knew that was truth for the organization, but I also realized that I needed to change the way I had those conversations in order to be more effective. And I could be the best technologist in the world but if I couldn’t learn how to have these conversations it didn’t mean anything. I could build like the best workflows ever but if I wanted to be effective in the organizations that I was working in, end users and the leaders that I needed to really learn how to have new conversations, and I realized then that I could learn how to have conversations in the same way that I can learn any kind of technical skills. So that’s what I’ve really focused on learning for myself but also sharing that knowledge to other folks for the last couple of years.

Gillian Bruce: Well yeah and we talk a lot about the technical skills and how you can learn those. You know we have Trailhead now, we have in classroom sessions, you can learn you know, bit by bit those technical skills but this is a skill that you definitely have to hone outside of the technology or in tandem, ideally but this is not necessarily something you can go learn on Trailhead. So, what are some ways that you I mean … in practice you’ve had to learn this, what are some things, like some moments that are some specific techniques that you’ve learned to help you transform the way you talk about things to help be more effective?

Meghan Himan: For leaders, one of the techniques that’s really been transformative for me is this concept of connecting with what they care about. So, as I think about having conversations … I’ll give you the example, like my 12 year old son loves this game called Fortnite, I’m sure everybody knows about Fortnite, and he tells me about it in excruciating detail. To the point where like my eyes glaze over and I just, I’m like I kind of want to … I don’t care and I want to move on and I think sometimes when we’re passionate about something like Salesforce or the technology, like we can do that too to our leaders and to our other executives and our team members. Like, go into excruciating detail that they really don’t care about.

Gillian Bruce: Because you’re excited about it, you want to share.

Meghan Himan: Yeah, and that’s what user groups are for because like, isn’t it amazing to find someone to be like, you get me, right? Let’s actually have this in depth conversation about the power of [inaudible 00:09:28] fields. For our executives, for example my 12 year old son if he came to me and said, “Mom, I’m really learning about collaboration and I’m learning about problem solving,” I’d be like, “Tell me more about how you’re learning about this ’cause these are things I really care about you gaining as a person.” So when we think about conversations with our executive leaders like, understanding what they care about and if we don’t know asking them, which sounds like a simple thing but say like, okay, I’m getting all these Salesforce requests for this next quarter. I really want to make sure that whatever I’m working on aligns with what’s most important for you in this coming quarter. Can you tell me more about what are the things outside of Salesforce, it doesn’t have to be inside of Salesforce but what you’re really thinking about this quarter and then coming back to that and talking about whatever the technical pieces are in the context of what they care about.

Gillian Bruce: So that’s, I mean that is incredibly powerful because when you are a great Salesforce Admin you’re also thinking about the goals of the company, right? And so you’re trying to figure out what technology to use to get there and you’re not gonna know what those are unless you have those conversations with your leaders.

Meghan Himan: And it’s amazing this woman named Joni Martin, I’m sure you might have met her, she founded a group called Amplify and she said, “What keeps your boss up at night?” And she said, “If you don’t know ask,” and that is such a great question because I don’t think we always know the answer to that but we need to ask and you’d be surprised what you can learn in those conversations.

Gillian Bruce: Or sometimes you think you know what they care about but then when you ask you’re like oh actually what I had in my head and what I was working towards is not actually what they really care about at this moment.

Meghan Himan: Totally.

Gillian Bruce: Okay so leaders, so there’s a certain kind of up leveling and focusing on what they care about, to talk to your leadership and kind of using your words and your conversation to be more successful that way. What other groups, ’cause you serve a lot … I mean, as a Salesforce Admin you work with a lot of different groups, what are some other techniques with maybe some other stakeholders?

Meghan Himan: So when I think about end users particularly, I had a great conversation with a woman named Sylvie who’s the IT director and she talks about investing and having coffee with people, because trust is the foundation and so when I think about really getting folks on board, a lot of it comes through relationships. People are willing to try the scary new thing that you’re asking them to do because we’ve had coffee together and there’s a level of trust there. So that’s the one piece I would say is invest in having coffee with people.

Meghan Himan: The other piece is something Mike Gerholdt talks a lot about. You know, Salesforce Administration by walking around.

Gillian Bruce: SABWA.

Meghan Himan: There’s an acronym for that SABWA. Sometimes we think we know what the problem is the way we think we know what our boss cares about, and then when we actually have them show it to us, it’s different and the other piece of that is really asking the why questions. So sometimes end users will be really descriptive, “I want you to build this new field. I want you to build this new picklist value that has you know, all the years in a picklist format.” Well why? Why is the question and getting to the heart of the why can help be more collaborative together and a part of that for end users too is involving them as solutioneers in the process.

Gillian Bruce: I like that word, solutioneer.

Meghan Himan: Solutioneer, I think I made that up.

Gillian Bruce: I like it.

Meghan Himan: So, not necessarily feeling like we have to have all the answers ’cause that as a admin was something that really brought me kind of … that humbled me a lot that I thought they would say something and I would have to like, come up with the answers right then.

Gillian Bruce: You have to know it all.

Meghan Himan: I would have to know it all, exactly, but having the humility to say, “Let’s figure this out together, I don’t know the answer to that,” can really kind of get them invested and also lead you to those bigger why questions of what they really want and how to get there.

Gillian Bruce: Well and I think that speaks to a lot of what we do when we just develop software period, is it’s … you don’t want a solution before you really get to the root of like, let’s say the user story or what you’re really trying to work for and what you’re trying to solve. Say, “Oh I can build a process builder process for that.” Well hold on, maybe that’s actually … let’s not focus on that end result first let’s focus on working through what you’re actually trying to solve for first, and I think yeah, involving your end users in that gives them a little more skin in the game, right? Like makes them invested, makes them feel like they’re part of it.

Meghan Himan: And they are part of it, right? Because they … oftentimes it’s the business process so it needs to change and not the technology around it and it takes awhile to lead folks through that conversation and having them come up with that aha moment is just as valuable as building the technical pieces around it.

Gillian Bruce: Absolutely. Yeah and that relationship with them, I mean yeah, I mean we’re all end users in some respects, right? And like you said, kind of looking at the business process is usually what needs to change not necessarily the technology. That’s like that whole you know, Salesforce Admins, we are business analyst for our company, right? We get to get that whole picture, and so that’s a very valuable perspective to bring to it.

Meghan Himan: One of the things that been transformative for me is I think about myself as a Salesforce Admin as a manager, because oftentimes we don’t actually manage anyone directly. We don’t have that authority over anyone, but we need to have influence over others and Mary Abbajay says that leadership in the 21st Century is more about influence than authority and I think for Salesforce Admins that is especially relevant, so when we transform the way we think about ourselves into managers and approach that and gaining influence and we manage a product which is Salesforce, but we actually manage all these business processes we can kind of revolutionize the way we interact with folks.

Gillian Bruce: Yeah, so let’s talk a little bit more about that. So when you kind of give yourself that idea of hey, I am more of a leader, what are some tips and tricks to kind of transform that thought? You know, hey I’m in a [inaudible 00:15:50] company, I kind of get told what to do by all the people. How do I start kind of taking charge of that and shifting that mindset a little bit?

Meghan Himan: That’s a great question. I think first it’s kind of stemming the chaos because we can’t step back enough to think of ourselves as a leader and provide kind of strategic ends when we’re just swarming under water, so setting up some system to tame the tide of requests, like all the support requests whether you’re using Salesforce cases internally or a Google Sheet or whatever it is but have some way of tracking those and prioritizing. And then the other thing I would think about is really thinking of ourselves as technologists that don’t necessarily have all the answers but can know where to find them and that speaks to bringing in your end users together but the thing that has been most effective for me in my career is understanding that if I can’t figure out a formula, I will just tag SteveMo on the hub and I having that knowledge to find him and get the answer is just as valuable as me going deep into formulas myself.

Meghan Himan: And the other part of being a leader is having those proactive conversations, like looking forward, what is it we’re trying to accomplish and asking those why questions of ourselves and of our leaders to move forward.

Gillian Bruce: All right, so you’re not just asking the five why’s of all of your requests coming in but also looking a little bit deeper in yourself of why are you doing this, why it matters to you, that’ll help kind of maybe recenter and elevate a little bit how you’re thinking of your role in all of the … amongst the chaos if you will, right?

Meghan Himan: Yes ’cause that’s the challenge is like with limited time, how do we prioritize what we’re working on and what we’re learning and what we’re thinking about and move forward.

Gillian Bruce: Well and I think a lot of what you have talked about and what we’ve talked about is kind of touching on that, that we talk about imposter syndrome a lot and the idea of do I belong? Is this something that I really should be doing? Maybe I am really not that technical, I don’t have all the answers, I’m still learning how to go tag SteveMo and ask for help with a formula. A lot of this kind of the idea of taking control of the conversation and changing the way you communicate can help battle that in some ways, right?

Meghan Himan: Well it starts with ourselves, right? That we have to start feeling the confidence, and I will tell you something, I wrote a whole blog about this, about the art of making mistakes. I touched dozens of orgs per year and it is not a question of if I’m gonna make a mistake it is when I’m going to make a mistake and so the thing that I do is back up data like crazy. Any time I’m doing anything I back up the data because I know it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when and having that transformative moment the way I think about myself as a technologist, that doing courageous things means I’m gonna make a mistake and moving forwards anyways. As leaders we think leaders aren’t afraid, but it’s not true they are afraid they just keep moving forwards anyways and so the technologists that I’ve seen make real changes are like wow, this could mess things up and I’m gonna tread carefully but I’m gonna go forward anyways rather than folks that are a little too afraid. You know, they’re the ones that have 14 installed packages in their instance that they’re too afraid of uninstalling because they don’t know what’s gonna happen instead of saying like, “Okay I’m gonna try to move the data to places I know this is gonna impact this other thing but I’m gonna work towards doing that.”

Gillian Bruce: Kind of that idea of hey, risks are a good thing, right? ‘Cause you learn and you reap rewards from them, right? No leader doesn’t take risks like you just kind of said.

Meghan Himan: Totally, and just the mid set that fear is good. Fear means that we’re stretching ourselves, everyone feels fear. Everyone makes mistakes and it’s really about how we move forward afterwards.

Gillian Bruce: Yeah, absolutely. That’s so well spoken, I love that. They’re gonna pull some quotables out of that and put that on the headline of the podcast for the week. So, let’s talk also about something that I know has kind of come up in the community. This idea of being an admin and on top of all your jobs. Some people call themselves accidental admins, some people call themselves other kinds of things, talk to me a little bit about I know you have some thoughts about that term, about how you kind of think about yourself as an admin in addition to something else or kind of adding that on to your skillset.

Meghan Himan: So when I first started thinking about this a lot was actually at the admin keynote two years ago, which was amazing. You just shined during that.

Gillian Bruce: Oh, thank you.

Meghan Himan: Seriously, that was just an amazing moment. I still have the hand clapper from that. And there was a couple different admins that were interviewed and one was Eric from Tuffshed and his boss talked about how he had a great attitude and was fearless and that’s why he chose him to be an admin, even though he didn’t have a technical background. And the other admin that was interviewed was Bindu who’s amazing and I hope I get to meet her some day, and she called herself an accidental admin and then made the comment that she realized that all of us feel like accidental admins and it was at that moment that I realized that that term was less about how someone came to be in terms of their technical background and was more about the organizationals relationship with technology, and that if an organization had a more kind of strategic view then maybe you’d be in a situation like Eric where someone tapped him and said, “I think you can do this,” as opposed to another organization where someone was thinking, “Oh I need to figure this out on my own and guess what I love it too.”

Meghan Himan: The way we talk about ourselves matters, it feeds into that confidence piece and that risk taking piece and when I think about our origin stories, you know my kids went camping and they went around the camp fire telling origin stories. How the jaguar got its spots, right? And even the first question you asked me was an origin story, how do I think about myself in the Salesforce? And when I look at some of the MVPs especially kind of some male MVPs they’ll say, “Somebody said go figure this out,” and when I look at some of the other folks, oftentimes women and people of color, we say, “Here I am and how this just happened by accident. I didn’t have someone tap me on the shoulder and say go figure this out and guess what I figured it out anyways.”

Meghan Himan: And so, the way we talk about ourselves matters and influences the courage and the risk taking we have later and that’s why I love the term also admin or awesome admin instead of accidental admin because it puts more power and courage in that origin story that really can drive us forward.

Gillian Bruce: I agree and it’s … so when the first time you brought this up and you kind of explained this to us and a lot of other people on our team was like, I had never thought about that and I think it’s really insightful and when you … it gives you that kind of that power of hey, no I may have not … like I maybe did not set out to be a Salesforce Admin, the opportunity presented itself and I owned that and I rocked it and now here I am, and like you said kind of the organizational prioritization of Salesforce is reflected in the whole like, well nobody else was doing it so I took it on and now I’m rocking it. Saying like yes, I am an also admin because I’m also these other things instead of kind of like oh this is like an accidental thing, no one was doing it, it wasn’t really prioritized and I’m kind of doing it … like got tasked with it X, Y, Z. I can kind of hear it’s a very different attitude about the role, about what you’re doing, about the place in the organization.

Meghan Himan: I think we all want a sense of belonging and so when we hear the term accidental admin we think, “Oh yes, other people feel this way.” But I would challenge all of us to think about this. Let’s say we show up at the New York World Tour and someones talking, they say, “Okay, we’re gonna divide the room in half. Accidental admins go over on this half and everyone else go on this half.” How would that feel? And does that term still serve us? And if it doesn’t, let’s take off that backpack and put on something that feels-

Gillian Bruce: Your cape, your super hero cape.

Meghan Himan: Yeah, your super hero cape, your awesome admin and just realize that like Bindu said, all of us have that origin story. Salesforce didn’t exist 15 years ago so guess what, all of us came into this either as a second career or from some other way so we need to kind of just like get over ourselves and the imposter syndrome of that and just move forward with courage.

Gillian Bruce: Amazing, so well said. I’m so glad that we got to talk about this and share this and I really, I hope that people listening kind of get some great nuggets out of that. That are really gonna help them help you listeners to kind of amplify and kind of shift your focus and how you think about yourself and how you think about your role. Speaking of which, Megan you have just kind of a top couple tips for folks that are maybe kind of like what are some first steps I can do to kind of start shifting this focus for myself? What are some words or something I can use? We talked about also admin versus accidental admin, what are some other tips you have for folks?

Meghan Himan: Well you said there’s no trail on Trailhead for this but there actually is for all these skills. It’s called Manage The Salesforce Way and again as we think of ourselves as not as order takers but as managers, there’s a lot of great tips in there so I would encourage folks to take that trail. There’s also of course I have a shameless plug for my own blog where I write about making mistakes and like failing forward and just thinking about the way we communicate and that’s at brightstepleadership.com. So those are two places that I would start.

Gillian Bruce: Great, I will definitely put those in the show notes and thank you for correcting me, of course use everything in Trailhead.

Meghan Himan: But we need more, we need more.

Gillian Bruce: We need more, that is a great module. I have done that and I totally didn’t even think about that so thank you for highlighting that. All right, before we let you go, Megan, I have to ask you a lightening round question. ‘Cause when I don’t ask a lightening wound question I get in big trouble. So, it’s a really silly question, first thing that comes to your mind, no right or wrong answer. Are you ready?

Meghan Himan: Yes.

Gillian Bruce: All right, this is a fun one. You’ve been to a few Dreamforces, what is one of your favorite Dreamforce bands you’ve seen?

Meghan Himan: Bruno Mars.

Gillian Bruce: I like it. That’s a great one. I didn’t actually get to go to that one because the keynote was the morning after for me but, I heard it was amazing.

Meghan Himan: It was.

Gillian Bruce: That’s great. Well, Megan, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and I really think some of these concepts are gonna help transform the way people think about themselves and being an admin and so I so appreciate you, the work you do and for joining us today.

Meghan Himan: Thanks for having me.

Gillian Bruce: Well you could probably tell that I really enjoy talking to Megan so I was very excited to be able to get her on the podcast and share with you listeners some of her amazing insights. Couple highlights for me were the idea of connecting with leadership, so understanding what your leadership care is about, ask them what their goals, what their things that they are tracking are, ’cause by understanding that, it will help you communicate better with them. I mean imagine if you understand oh my manager really cares about making the sale cycle quicker, well, then that’s gonna help you prioritize what you’re doing in Salesforce. What things can you automate? How can you help close business quicker? And by understanding what your leadership cares about, it’s gonna help you communicate better because you’re gonna be able to speak their language and you’re gonna help them get done what they want to get done so that’s a great way to kind of start thinking about communicating in a more powerful way.

Gillian Bruce: Another thing I thought was very interesting is thinking of ourselves as Salesforce Admins as managers, even if we don’t actually manage somebody. As a Salesforce Admin, we manage a lot. We manage not only the Salesforce Org but we also manage all of our users, our stakeholders, and there’s a lot that comes with that. It gives us a lot of opportunity to kind of be a leader, to learn how to build and gain influence with others and by doing that you’re gonna get others to be able to buy into what you want them to try quicker. By building the trust with your users and with your stakeholders when you come up with a new idea or something that you want to change, they’re gonna be more willing to take that risk and try that new thing because they trust you because you’ve built a relationship with them.

Gillian Bruce: Some really easy ways to do that are by doing coffees with your users or stakeholders or you know, the famous SABWA; Salesforce Administration By Walking Around. You know, going and talking to your users and your stakeholders and finding out how they’re using Salesforce. And then finally we had a really great conversation about the term accidental admin. Now, this is something that I know many previous guests on the podcast have self identified as and I think you know if that serves you and helps you feel powerful then that’s great, keep using it but I would encourage you to kind of take heed to some of the things that Megan talked about.

Gillian Bruce: The idea of accidental might be a little disempowering. None of us probably set out to be a Salesforce Admin to begin with but here we are finding ourselves in this position and instead of saying, “Oh it accidentally fell in my lap, oh I accidentally got here,” really taking that role of an admin and owning it and being an awesome admin gives you a lot more power. Gives you a lot more ownership of that role so I encourage you to think of that, that especially as we come towards the end of the year and I know some of us are probably working on some New Year’s resolutions, maybe think about starting the year changing the way you view yourself. Maybe you don’t view yourself as an accidental admin anymore, but you truly view yourself as an awesome admin.

Gillian Bruce: Thank you so much listening today, I encourage you to share this episode with your friends, with your Salesforce Ohana. You can find episodes, blogs, events, webinars on admin.salesforce.com so make sure to check that out. Also, please remember to subscribe to the podcast to make sure you get the latest and greatest episodes delivered to your platform or device of choice the moment they are released. If you want to learn a little bit more about what we talked today on the podcast with Megan, we have some resources for you. As mentioned there’s the Manage The Salesforce Way module on Trailhead, definitely check that out and check out Megan’s website brightstepleadership.com. Both those links are in the show notes, amazing resources to help you truly be an awesome admin. You can find us on Twitter @salesforceadmns no I. Our guest today, Megan is @meganhiman and myself @gilliankbruce. Thanks so much for listening to this episode and we’ll catch you next time in the cloud.

Admin Release Countdown: Get Ready for Spring ’19!

It’s time to mark your calendars for the next Salesforce Release, Spring ’19! Below are the most important dates you’ll want to save, but you’ll of course want to stay tuned for updates, favorite feature posts, and other helpful resources, too.

Dec 13: Get early access to the release by signing up for a Pre-Release org

Admins can sign up for a Developer Edition environment chock full of all the Spring ’19 features to explore to your heart’s content. Developer environments are stand-alone environments where you can learn, build, and get comfortable with features and functionality.

Get help from the community! Each release there are a number of blogs by community members that break down the release. If you have written a post about the release, or know of another community post that would be helpful to other #AwesomeAdmins, please comment below!

Jan 4: Be sure to refresh your Sandbox

January 4th is the refresh deadline to get early access to all the Spring ’19 features in one of your Sandboxes. Once you have explored with the Free Developer environment and reviewed the release notes for features that are important to you – it’s time to try out features related to your customizations in your sandbox. This is a great time to evaluate how specific features may be useful or impactful for the way your organization uses Salesforce. Check out this article for instructions on exactly how and when to refresh your sandbox!

Jan 25: Join us live for the Awesome Admin Release Preview

Join Admin Evangelists and an expert panel for a 1hr deep dive into the release and what features Admins can’t miss. This preview is a great opportunity to hear an overview from Admin experts and may help you determine which features in the Release Readiness Live broadcast to focus on. There are a lot of features delivered with each release, so we go through all of it and provide a summary of the features most impactful to Admins.

Jan 28-Feb 1: Watch Release Readiness LIVE by cloud

Hear from Product Managers across the company and across the clouds as they share the latest features and demos of their products. This is a multi-day, live video streaming event that is available on-demand after the event.

Feb 8: Spring ’19 Arrives!

Check the Maintenance Calendar for exactly when your Salesforce will get the Spring ’19 features. Scroll through the list and check your Salesforce instance (NA__, EMEA__) against the release dates listed in the calendar. Once the release window has passed for your environment, you will have access to the newest features in your production environment!

Alright, #AwesomeAdmins. Now’s the time to mark those calendars and get ready for all the amazingness coming your way in Spring ’19! 🌸

How to Build Accessible Apps with Adam Rodenbeck

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re talking to Adam Rodenbeck, Senior User Experience Team Member at Salesforce, to wrap up our two-part series focused on building accessible apps. We look at his experience developing accessible apps from both the admin and the developer side of things and do a demo live on the pod of what it’s like to navigate with a screen reader.

Join us as we talk about how a screen reader works and the technology behind it, Adam’s amazing journey through tech, and what you can do to bring accessibility to your users.

You shouldsubscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Adam Rodenbeck.

Adam’s journey to Salesforce.

“When I started my Salesforce journey, I sent an email out that said I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up until I saw this presentation from one of the accessibility specialists at Salesforce,” Adam says, “I always wanted to do something with computers that would give back to the blind community.” Adam got his start at a nonprofit, training people who had lost their sight later in life to use the computer again, but this role was an opportunity to put together everything he loves in one role.

“We started using Salesforce as our system of record to store information on all the clients,” Adam says, “and it blew me away just how well it was working.” In 2009, it was rare to encounter an enterprise software program that was reasonable to navigate with a screen reader, and that helped him dive into the platform. He eventually found his way into the IT department as a developer.

“I work with designers on new features on the platform,” Adam says, “that’s usually discussing what it’s going to take to make this accessible, how is the keyboard interaction going to work? What are the things that are going to be visual that might need to get called out to a person who is using a screen reader?” From there, it’s working with engineering teams to actually make that happen.

The basics of screen readers and how to test for them.

A screen reader has two pieces to it. For one thing, it’s actually reading the screen aloud (and you get to decide things like how the voice sounds). But the other component is a Braille display, which connects via USB or Bluetooth and represents what’s on the screen in Braille with dots that can be raised and lowered. “Because I work a lot with code, I really need to have that Braille reinforcement to read what’s on the screen at the same time that it’s being read to me,” Adam says.

“If you’re an admin and you’re using the components that Salesforce put together, then accessibility should be available to you,” Adam says, “but a quick test to make sure that everything is working well is to see if you can get to the control you want by tabbing down the screen.” Sometimes it’s arrow keys, but try using the keyboard and seeing if you can get to anything a user is going to need.

Having conversations to improve accessibility.

“If a designer can describe something to me, how it should act or what they want to happen, and make me, as someone who is blind, understand what it is that their design does it gives us both a better understanding,” Adam says. If you can’t describe your customizations in a way that everyone can understand, you’re probably not doing it right.

The key to creating something that works for your users is to have conversations with the people you want to support. Screen reader users often use the find command, so they want as much information as possible on the screen to get to what they need quickly. Screen magnifier users, on the other hand, are looking for an uncluttered display since everything is enlarged for them. Do your research, but also have the conversations with the people you are supporting.

Hear how a screen reader user navigates Salesforce for yourself.

In order to make things that work better for a screen reader, you need to understand what it’s like to use one. We do our first ever demo on the pod, to show you the difference between a page layout optimized for a tabbing experience versus a page layout optimized for a find experience. It’s hard to explain, so take a listen for yourself and think about what you might be able to do to help make things easier.

Love our podcasts?

Full Show Transcript

Gillian Bruce: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins Podcast, where we talk about product, community, and careers to help you become a more awesome Salesforce Admin. I’m Gillian Bruce. Today, we are wrapping up our two part series focused on accessibility. Now, we heard from Sunday last week about what accessibility means, what an accessible app means. Today, we’re going to dig down a little deeper and talk to someone who actually develops successful apps, has experienced both from the admin side, the developer side and now is working at Salesforce. We’re talking to Adam Rodenbeck. Now, he’s a senior user experience team member here at Salesforce. He’s got an incredible personal story and he’s really passionate about making apps accessible. Not only making apps accessible, but really helping others understand how important accessibility is and what opportunities that really opens up.

Gillian Bruce: Adam also is going to give us a very special treat. He’s going to give us a live demonstration of what it’s like to read an account page with a screen reader. Two different ways to really demonstrate the power of optimization for different types of users. So, thinking about using compact layouts, accordion features, tabbing through a page, or using a find feature. We’ll talk more about that in the interview. Without further ado, let’s get Adam on the podcast.

Gillian Bruce: Adam, welcome to the podcast.

Adam Rodenbeck: Thank you so much. It’s awesome to be here.

Gillian Bruce: So happy to have you on the podcast. We’re talking about a subject that I have been learning a lot about lately. We had our first episode talking to Sunday about an overview of accessibility and getting introduced to that, especially for our Admin audience, and I’m excited to have you on to further that discussion, but before we get into that, there’s a question I like to ask to help introduce you to the audience. That question is, Adam, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Adam Rodenbeck: It’s a crazy question because when I started my Salesforce journey, I sent an email out and it kind of said, like, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up until I saw this presentation from one of the accessibility specialists at Salesforce on accessibility, and I’m like, “Yes, that’s it.” Like, I always knew that I’m blind myself and so I wanted to do something to do with computers that would give back to the blindness community, but I really didn’t know what that would be. If it was like programming a screen reader or I did for a little while training people who were blind to use the computer again, people who had lost their sight later in life, but it was all like, “I don’t really know,” until I figured out that I could put together the programming and the accessibility and the love that I have for Salesforce into this one big thing and do accessibility work at Salesforce.

Gillian Bruce: That is awesome. How did you first come into the Salesforce ecosystem? How did you first learn about Salesforce?

Adam Rodenbeck: I worked at a nonprofit. That’s where I was teaching Assistive Technologies, and that’s all screen readers and screen magnifier, things like that. I was teaching in our Assistive Tech lab and we started using Salesforce as our system of record to store information all the clients. It kind of blew me away just how well it was working. This is like 2009 when screen readers and the web and it really was good for enterprise software. So, using an enterprise software package that I could reasonably navigate with a screen reader was pretty impressive to me. I spent a lot of time because it also was this database, and as a computer science major, that was a big thing to me. So, I spent a bunch of time just kind of investigating it. Eventually, I ended up in our IT department and just accidentally happened to become a developer.

Gillian Bruce: Accidentally becoming a developer? I don’t think that there’s anything accidental about that. I mean, you studied computer science. Tell me what drew you to computer science. I’m always fascinated to know how these things get sparked for folks.

Adam Rodenbeck: I think it’s really the, I liked exploring how things are put together and what makes them work, and that initially was mechanical things. So, taking apart toys and trying to figure out how to get them back together, which didn’t always work. So, when I figured out that in the computer world, you can break things and fix them and they go back together a lot simpler than fitting them back in a package that somebody spent tons of time in the factory making work, it made more sense to me and a it was a great chance to understand how different things worked. So, telephone systems and I was all over the place. Anything that had to do with computers, I geeked out on.

Gillian Bruce: That’s awesome. Okay. So, you started early, you’ve always been interested in figuring things out. I love that. That methodology, that thinking clearly has helped lead you to where you are today, and you’re bringing together this passion that you have. So, tell me a little bit about actually what you do today at Salesforce.

Adam Rodenbeck: I like to think of my role as a consultant. I work with both designers and our engineering teams, and initially with the designers to figure out, here’s a new design, it’s a new idea of some feature that’s going to be on the platform. That’s initially just discussing what is it going to take to make this accessible? How is the keyboard interaction going to work? What are the things that are going to be visual that might need to get called out to a person who say is using a screen reader. Then walking that through the process of getting to the engineering teams and helping them understand, now that you have these specs from a designer, how can you actually implement that to be accessible. What needs to happen when a person tabs from one control to the next control? Or what keyboard buttons should they be pressing to make certain things happen?

Gillian Bruce: One of the things we talked about with Sunday, and this was a moment I think I told you about this when we were first talking about planning this podcast is, a colleague of mine, Marc Baizman was giving a demo in middle of a user group meeting and the mouse went out and he had to tab through the demo and I had never seen that done before in Salesforce, and I was just fascinated, because I was like, “All right, well, here we go.” I had no idea it works that well, period.

Adam Rodenbeck: It’s a super great example of when you have a temporary disability. It’s not that you couldn’t otherwise have used the mouse, but it doesn’t exist anymore.

Gillian Bruce: Technology said, “Nope, you don’t get to do that.” Let’s talk a little bit more like, you mean, you talk about screen readers, some of the technologies that are used to help drive accessibility. You’ve been in the space for a while. Tell me, I mean, I think screen reader reads the screen. Can you tell me a little bit more about how it works and how folks interact with it?

Adam Rodenbeck: Yes. A screen reader kind of has two pieces to it. Obviously, it’s reading. So, there’s a synthesized voice that there are all kinds of different ones of those. You can pick whether it sounds like a male or sounds like a female, people can vary the rate and the pitch and to make all of these tweaks to make that sound better to their ear, but it also will work with what’s called a Braille display. That’s this cool little box that it’s usually USB, some of them are Bluetooth, but they connect to the computer and can represent with these dots that can be raised and lowered in Braille what’s on the screen. So, the screen reader is the interface between both of those.

Adam Rodenbeck: Me personally because I do a lot with code, I really need to have that Braille reinforcement to read what’s on the screen at the same time that it’s being read to me, and then it also helps that I don’t have to listen to like, semi colon, open parentheses, close parentheses and things like that.

Gillian Bruce: I don’t know. That sounds thrilling. Well, I do think that’s a really good point. So, you actually said you are this accidental developer, which is an interesting term. Learning how to develop on a platform, I mean, I know for me, even when I was trying to learn how to write a formula, I had a hard time and I wasn’t relying on those technologies but my brain just didn’t work that way. That’s a whole another conversation. But the the idea of … I mean, this is a language. It’s a whole another language you’re learning. How is it, like for you, learning how to build and develop on a platform? What were some of the challenges that you had maybe with the Salesforce platform because I know we talk a lot about people’s journeys, learning how to built on Salesforce, what was it like for you? What were some of the challenges that you had along the way?

Adam Rodenbeck: Some of the initial challenges were really trying to figure out what was going to be a good coding environment for me, so, it’s kind of difficult and not just in Salesforce, but all the way around, what is the best ID? So, what is the best developer experience that’s going to work with a screen reader? That was a challenge, and it was really a lot of browsing around the various developer forums and Stock Exchange and seeing what did other people use, and then playing with that, and seeing what does work with a screen reader. So for me, I landed on Eclipse and the Force.com IDE. This was like 2013. That all worked really, really well. Impressively well, actually, with the screen reader. So, that was my initial development platform.

Gillian Bruce: That’s awesome. What are some cool nerdy things that you’ve built that you’ve been really excited about?

Adam Rodenbeck: One of the most exciting or to me exciting anyway, things that I worked on was, I worked at a consulting company, we were an implementation partner and we were actually working on a project of converting over a company that used a ton of spreadsheets. They needed these crazy formulas for calculating net present value, which is a super accounting thing that I don’t really understand, but-

Gillian Bruce: Get another language.

Adam Rodenbeck: … but they told me here is what happens, and it’s all very recursive, and it calculates stuff out over like 10 years. So, each year, you have to take the value from the year before and I had to figure out a way to get Apex to do that and do it in a way that wouldn’t time the system out. So, it took quite a while for me to piece it all together, but I had such fun with it because I’m a crazy math geek and so it all really was interesting to me even though I don’t think I still fully understand the accounting principle.

Gillian Bruce: Well, you don’t have to know all the details in order to take those spreadsheets and build some automation in there and bring them in the system.

Adam Rodenbeck: Exactly.

Gillian Bruce: That’s really cool. Anytime we can hear a story about turning spreadsheets and getting rid of the spreadsheets and putting them into Salesforce, we’re all about it. Big fans [inaudible 00:11:01]. What are some maybe surprises that you’ve had along the way in terms of learning how to build on the platform?

Adam Rodenbeck: Surprises.

Gillian Bruce: They could be happy surprises. They could be bad surprises.

Adam Rodenbeck: See, one of the things early on, I wanted to do whatever it was I could with Salesforce, and an initial thing was a struggle with the Page Layout Editor and trying to manipulate things. There’s a lot of drag and drop and it’s something that accessibility is still working on to try to work itself out, but the fact that that didn’t work so well and everyone else is like, “Yes, you can do all these cool things with Salesforce and just move stuff around and whatever people want and the Page Layout.” So, I guess turning that negative experience of not being able to use the Page Layout Editor in the best way, that’s what pushed me into learning how to developing Visualforce because I’m like, “How am I going to make this work?” I’ll just build the whole page myself.

Adam Rodenbeck: I did that and that’s really what got my career going and what launched me into moving from the nonprofit and to actually working at a partner. That kind of non accessible experience drove me to create my own path.

Gillian Bruce: I love that drive to figure it out and then opening up a whole new maybe kind of path for you to think about doing and here you are. That’s very cool. It’s very cool. I know Visualforce is one of those things that when people learn it or have moments like that, learning how to do a new skill, figuring out a problem, it’s that feeling of like, “I got this. Okay, what else can I do?” It’s very cool.

Adam Rodenbeck: All along the way, it’s that whole intriguing piece of, “Oh, here’s what a Salesforce page looks like.” Then you look at, “Oh, here are the component. I can make it look exactly like that. It’s almost like it’s Salesforce.” So, it was fun.

Gillian Bruce: Speaking of Page Layout Editor, and digital for us, let’s talk a little bit about Lightning. Lightning has been around since 2015, and one of the things that I briefly chatted with Sunday about was that Lightning, is actually built to be a little bit more accessible at heart. Can you talk to me a little bit more about maybe the experience in lightning versus Classic?

Adam Rodenbeck: One of the places, I think, that is especially better is Chatter, it’s an example I like to use because we’ve done a whole lot to indicate to a person what is happening. Some of the things that didn’t work so well in Classic was that as pop ups happened, and say, your add mentioned somebody, it was difficult to tie together the list of people’s names and the actual text field that you’re typing in. That’s a limitation that we overcame with Lightning and now we’ve made Chatter an experience that should be just like what our cited counterparts are doing, where now you can mention somebody and arrow down to the list and hit enter and it includes that app mentioned.

Adam Rodenbeck: That and another really big piece is keystrokes. We’ve included some shortcut keys for our power users, and also for people who are using keyboard only to get around. They are mainly for the console. If you’re using say, service console or sales console, but a few of them crossover and they’re actually available to anybody. If you simply hit control/ on the PC, or I think it’s command/ on a Mac, it will show you a list of keyboard keystrokes that are available.

Gillian Bruce: Yes, I actually remember I think when we released keystrokes, the admin community was like, “Hurray, this is great. I can do things so much more quickly in the app.” So, I have used keystrokes for sure. I think, it’s interesting to think some of these things that maybe we develop for accessibility help everybody in the long run. It kind of help drive efficiency for everyone building and doing their job.

Adam Rodenbeck: Yes. I’m glad you said that because it’s a lot about the universal design principle. The fact that accessibility isn’t something that’s just for people with disabilities, but it really improves everybody’s experience, and may be is not something that you use every day, but when that thing happens and you can’t use the mouse, then it’s there, and it’s available to you.

Gillian Bruce: That’s great. One question that I would love to ask you, as an admin or maybe even a developer, when you’re building an app, what are some good ways to check for accessibility? What are some good testing principles or checklist that you would recommend using?

Adam Rodenbeck: For anybody who’s developing an accessibility for the first time, even if you’re just building something out, if you’re an admin and you’re using the components that Salesforce put together, then accessibility should be available to you, but a quick test to make sure that everything is working well is to see if you can tab through. So, can you get to the control that you want by tabbing down the screen? Tab is not the only way to work with things, so, maybe if you get into a list, it’s arrow keys to navigate within the list, but that first step of just making sure that you can actually use the keyboard and get to everything that your user is going to need.

Gillian Bruce: That’s an easy thing to do. I can imagine going and doing that. Like we mentioned, sometimes, unintentionally, you have to figure that out anyway. That’s a good test.

Gillian Bruce: Now, get ready for a first ever demo on the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Adam is going to treat us to a very special demo of a screen reader demonstrating the two differences between a page layout optimized for a tabbing experience versus a page layout optimized for a find experience. For those of you who have never had a screen reader, get ready. This is really interesting. I’d love for you, as Adam is giving this demo, try and see if you can visualize what this page looks like as he’s tabbing through, he’s getting with the screen reader is giving back to him and he guides us along that way, but think about in your head as you’re walking your dog, driving your car, try and visualize this page that Adam is describing in this demo.

Adam Rodenbeck: First we’re going to take a look at just a standard page layout that has an account view with different tabs and show how a screen reader user might navigate through that and then alternatively we have a simpler layout which just has everything on one tab rather than having to switch back and forth.

Speaker 3: The title is, books upon books at article bar Salesforce-Google Chrome. Books upon books at article bar Salesforce-

Adam Rodenbeck: What I’m going to now do is go down through the page using screen reader navigation to move by heading. That’s just a quick method that screen reader users have to jump between various sections of the page.

Speaker 3: We found no potential duplicates of this account heading level two. Contacts left [inaudible 00:18:17] in one right [inaudible 00:18:19] heading level two link.

Adam Rodenbeck: We can see right here this heading said that its contacts. I’m actually on the related tab. So, if I’m a screener user and I’m looking for something that’s on the details tab, say it’s the account number that I want, I need to go back up the page to find my tab set.

Speaker 3: Related tab use just key plus, alt plus and to move to controlled element.

Adam Rodenbeck: I hear now that this is the related tab and I’m just going to use my arrows to switch to detail.

Speaker 3: Details tab selected use just key plus alt plus and to move to controlled element two or three.

Adam Rodenbeck: So, it tells me that this is the second of the third. So, related details and this should be news.

Speaker 3: News tab selected used.

Adam Rodenbeck: Cool. So, we’ll go back to detail.

Speaker 3: Details tab selected you. Tab panel, Adam Rodenbeck link.

Adam Rodenbeck: Now I know that I’m in the tab panel for that detail section, and a real typical thing at this point would be to just use a fine command to look for the account number.

Speaker 3: Virtual find.

Adam Rodenbeck: Now we’ll.

Speaker 3: Account number 12345.

Adam Rodenbeck: That’s a pretty simple method for actually jumping between tabs and then finding the info that I want, but depending on how it is that you typically use this, you might find it simpler to have this on one page layout. So, I’ll switch here to our demo account.

Speaker 3: Demo account, vertical bar salesforce-Google Chrome.

Adam Rodenbeck: On this page layout, we have everything all in one spot. So, there are the related lists, all of my account details, and depending on what your users prefer, it might be easier to use some of the expand collapsible sections so our user can hide things that they don’t want. If you have address information in one part, maybe, or your account information, SLA, things like that. You can collapse those down and a person can again jump by headings. I’ll do that.

Speaker 3: Tabs heading level two.

Adam Rodenbeck: This is just a single tab.

Speaker 3: Details tab selected use just keep-

Adam Rodenbeck: You also could get rid of the tab set entirely and just have your detail component.

Speaker 3: Details heading level two.

Adam Rodenbeck: Here are the details.

Speaker 3: Contacts heading level two link.

Adam Rodenbeck: That’s followed immediately by the related lists that are available on the page.

Adam Rodenbeck: You can see this account we have contacts, opportunities, cases, and for each one it tells me there are zero. So, it’s kind of a boring account here, but it demonstrates though that on one single page I’m able to see the information as well as the related list. So, if I’m in the section of the page which has the cases and I kind of wonder, “What was the account number?” I can again.

Speaker 3: Virtual find. [inaudible 00:21:43]

Adam Rodenbeck: We’ll now search for account number.

Speaker 3: wrapping to top, account number.

Adam Rodenbeck: The screener even told me that it wraps to top, so, it was able to find down the page. There was no account number so it started over at the top of the page and now I do have my account number available.

Speaker 3: 12813.

Adam Rodenbeck: There you have it. So, kind of an easy way to change things around just depending on what is more convenient for your particular users.

Gillian Bruce: All right. Now that we’ve got the demo, let’s get back into the interview where Adam talks about some of the amazing parts about his work with accessibility, and some of the amazing things that he has seen as outcomes from his work.

Adam Rodenbeck: I think that maybe one of the best things that I’ve gotten in dealing with accessibility is talking to designers. If they can describe something to me and how it should act or what they want to happen, and me being somebody who is blind and not able to see the screen, they can make me understand what it is that their design does, then I think it gives us both a better understanding. So, they become a little more in touch with what they’re designing, and then I have an understanding of what it should do to help guide them down that road. That’s a great place that I think accessibility bridges a gap between people, maybe with a disability, and then people who are unfamiliar with the realm entirely.

Gillian Bruce: Absolutely. I think that’s a really great example. One of the things, as Admins, especially as we’re building out customizations, and trying to figure out how to customize the app, if you cannot describe it in a way that everyone can understand, you’re probably not doing it right.

Adam Rodenbeck: Right. I think that if you take that a step further, one of the things is, what do I need to do if I’m going to interact with this particular person? The biggest thing is that you should talk to that person and try to understand what their difficulties are, and how can you make it better for them. If it’s rearranging things on a page layout in a certain way so that they can get to it more efficiently, it depends on what the person is using. If they’re using a screen reader or if they’re using a screen magnifier. So, a person with the screen magnifier is going to be really concerned about how much real estate things take up on the screen. That person might be more interested in having less things on a particular page layout, and they might use things like tabs, whereas a screen reader user wants to be able to get to as much information as quickly as possible, and they might do that through using the find command.

Adam Rodenbeck: So, if you think about just a standard Control F, or Command F to bring up the find box, if it’s not on the screen, then their find won’t be able to locate it. So, that person would probably prefer to have more information available to them, less things buried under accordions and tabs and expandable collapsible things, and just have it visible because they’re going to use other navigation methods to get to it rather than just scrolling.

Gillian Bruce: I think that’s a really interesting point because even just customizing this page layouts for different folks who prefer to have information displayed in different ways, I mean, that’s something really easy that any of us can do that customization. So, the idea of using the accordion, using those different Lightning components versus having all of the information just there on the page, that’s an easy customization that we could do within a few minutes.

Adam Rodenbeck: Absolutely. But it’s most important to talk to that user and find out, “Which one is going to work better for you?” Rather than doing this blanket. This is the profile that I’ve been told is most accessible, so therefore, that fits you. Take the time to investigate what would people prefer.

Gillian Bruce: Well, yes. Accessibility can mean different things for different people. There’s quite a spectrum of what is accessible for me may be different accessible for you, may be different accessible for somebody else. I think that we talked about with Salesforce Admins this idea of SABWA, which is an acronym for Salesforce Administration By Walking Around. It’s, “Hey, you got to talk to your users. See how they’re using the app. See how they’re clicking through things? How are they logging a call?” That kind of thing.

Adam Rodenbeck: Absolutely. I love that.

Gillian Bruce: Yes, we can credit Mike Gerholdt with that because he created that acronym. Every time I say it I do like a machete move like, “SABWA.” Adam, I so appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. It’s been so great to learn more about accessibility in general and then also your story, which is really fun. I would really get in trouble if I let you go from the podcast and don’t ask you a Lightning round question.

Adam Rodenbeck: All right.

Gillian Bruce: It’s a question that doesn’t actually have anything to do with Lightning. First thing that come to mind, there’s no right or wrong answer. Are you ready?

Adam Rodenbeck: I’m ready.

Gillian Bruce: Okay, Adam. You have been in the Salesforce ecosystem for a while. What is one of your favorite features that Salesforce has released?

Adam Rodenbeck: Chatter.

Gillian Bruce: Chatter. I love it. So, would that follow that maybe Chatter is one of your favorite mascots.

Adam Rodenbeck: Yes, I think so. That’s going way back, but yes. I remember one of my first Dreamforce’s I got my picture taken with Chatty.

Gillian Bruce: I think it was my first or second Dreamforce when Chatty was … they put all like these little Chatty windup toys on the seats in the keynote, I remember, and then Chatty was debut and we have a strong contingent of the Admin Ohana that misses Chatty and wishes Chatty was going to come back. But she’s on sabbatical. Who knows? Maybe she’ll return.

Adam Rodenbeck: I hope so.

Gillian Bruce: Excellent. Adam, thank you so much for joining us today. I’m so excited to be connected with you, and thank you for teaching me a lot.

Adam Rodenbeck: Yes, thank you. This is amazing to be on this podcast.

Gillian Bruce: Well, that was fun. I so enjoyed getting to know Adam a little bit more and spending time with him. I love the fact that he was willing to do a live demo with me on the podcast. So, I hope that it was fun for you as well, listeners. I’d love to get your feedback on that. I learned a ton between Sunday and Adam the last few weeks on the podcast. We also have a great blog post that just went live. Lee White who’s on the same team wrote a blog post helping us understand as Admin, some real tactical things that we can do to optimize page layouts for our blind or low vision users. Make sure you check that out. It’s on admin.salesforce.com. Just to recap some of the amazing things from our conversation with Adam.

Gillian Bruce: First of all, I love learning more about how a screen reader actually works. It’s a synthesized voice of your choice as Adam pointed out, and this Braille display, that USB powered Braille display that you can plug into your computer is really an incredible piece of technology as well. So, between those two, that’s the makeup of what a screen reader does to help those who cannot see understand what’s going on the screen. I really also enjoyed the story about how Adam said that Salesforce and Eclipse, and Force.com IDE, it’s what we used to call it, was actually, they performed impressively well when he was looking for coding environments that worked for low and blind users. So, I thought that was really interesting to know. I think it’s great to help us realize how important that is. It’s at the core of our technology.

Gillian Bruce: It was very interesting how he said to page editor of the drag and drop functionality. We actually have a few things that are drag and drop within our user experience and how that was tough for him in the beginning, but it drove him to learn Visualforce and learn a new skill and learn how to build pages, and now that we’re in Lightning things have definitely shifted but it’s a great example of how when you encounter a challenge, it pushes you to learn new things to try and overcome.

Gillian Bruce: I also really like the idea of shortcut keys, where an accessibility feature that I know many of us know and love. If you have not used shortcut keys, make sure you check them out. Again, I think it’s command/ in how you access them. If you want to test your app to see if it is accessible, some easy things that you can do, see if you can tab through. Try not using your mouse to complete a task, to log a call, to create a record, see how that goes and use arrow keys. If you can do that, that’s a good sign that you’re on the right path.

Gillian Bruce: As Adam pointed out, a lot of the Salesforce natural features are pretty accessible. So, you’re already starting from a good spot. When in doubt, talk to your users. Sunday talked a lot about this. We’ve talked a lot about this overall, as Admins, one of the most important things we can do is get to know our users. Do SABWA, Salesforce Administration By Walking Around. Go talk to your users, ask them how they use the app and what might make their lives easier and make it easier for them to use. Remember that accessibility means different things to different people. Don’t discount that.

Gillian Bruce: If you want a good reminder or you want to a fun way to demonstrate the different types of things you can do to optimize Salesforce for those who cannot see, play Adams demo. I thought that was really, really interesting about how the two different types of [inaudible 00:31:18], it’s just those simple little changes that you can do in a few minutes in the Lightning app builder can make a huge difference depending on how the user prefers to use the technology.

Gillian Bruce: Thank you so much for joining us. I’d love to hear from any of you who have your own accessibility stories when it comes to Salesforce. This is a topic that I have really enjoyed getting to know about and I am fascinated to learn more. I want to thank you all for listening to the podcast. Remember to subscribe so you get the latest and greatest delivered to your platform or device of choice the moment they are released. If you want some great resources for more information on accessibility check out the show notes. I’ve got a ton in there for you. There’s groups on the Trailblazer community, there’s great resources. Some of the same ones that we referenced for Sunday’s podcasts as well. Make sure you check those out.

Gillian Bruce: As always, you can find all things awesome admin on adminsalesforce.com including that great blog post that Lee just posted about configuring Salesforce for blind and low vision users. As always, you’ll find more events, webinars and yes, even podcast there as well. You can find us on Twitter at @SalesforceAdmns, our guest today Adam is @arodenbeck, and myself @gilliankbruce. Thank you so much for listening to this episode, and we’ll catch you next time in the cloud.

How to Configure Salesforce for your Blind and Low Vision Users

Accessibility is important to us here at Salesforce, and our team is dedicated to building the platform so that it is accessible to everyone regardless of their abilities. That means we are often asked what Admins can do to configure more accessible Salesforce apps. One of the most common requests is how to optimize apps for blind or low-vision users. While this may be a small percentage of your user base, as an #AwesomeAdmin the positive outcomes of optimizing for these users is indeed very large. These suggestions may also increase productivity for all your users, regardless of their ability level!

While the answer to “how do I optimize apps for blind or low-vision users” will likely vary from scenario to scenario, this post will give you the tools you need to provide the best possible experience for any users in your organization with these disabilities. Since Lightning Experience provides many accessibility features out of the box, our focus here will be on usability, consistency, and efficiency for users who are blind or have low vision.

Identifying Groups of Users Within Groups of Users

One way we can deliver an amazing experience for all of our users is customizing page layouts depending on how users perform work. This is even more important for users with disabilities.

Users who are blind use an assistive technology tool called a screen reader to interact with Salesforce. Screen readers turn text on a page into synthesized speech. They can also describe interactive objects on a page such as form fields, tabsets, menus, and comboboxes. Screen reader users may use special keystrokes to navigate the page by headings by form fields, or even from button to button. Given this, any inefficiencies of a page layout or Lightning record page for one user may be experienced 10 times over by a user who is blind.

Disabilities and assistive technologies aside, consider the Opportunity object. If one group of users frequently needs the Activity Publisher and Timeline, that feature can be prioritized higher on a page.

If another group of users interacts with the Details section the most on Leads, then those users would benefit from higher prominence of the Detail section on their page.

As not all blind or low vision users in your organization will be performing the same work, it is important to understand how people with these disabilities will be using Salesforce. Talk to your users with disabilities. Gain an understanding for how they work so you can configure Salesforce to be efficient given their workflow and disability.

Creating Profiles

Since we need to make layouts that are optimized for how your users work, the first step is to make new profiles specific to these users.

After speaking with your users, let’s say you identified 2 groups of screenreader users who can benefit from specialized Layouts. The first group’s main activities include logging activities. The second group primarily creates and updates records.

To support these users, we are going to create 2 new profiles.

Go to Profiles in the setup tree and click the ‘New Profile’ button.

Choose which existing profile to clone and name the new profile appropriately. In this example, “Screen Reader – Detail Focus”, as we will promote record detail on their layouts.

3. Keep all the permissions and securities the same, since all that is changing are the layouts.

4. Go to Users in the setup tree and switch the screen reader users’ profiles to the newly created user profile, “Screen Reader – Detail Focus”.

Repeat the previous steps to create the ‘Screen Reader – Activity Focus’ profile and assign any applicable users. Now you are ready to create their specific, efficient page layouts!

Changes to the Page Layouts

There are two places we can help make record pages more efficient for our blind and low vision users: Object Page Layouts and Lightning Record Pages.

First, let’s update the object page layouts. We’ll use Opportunities as an example.

Go to Page Layouts for the Opportunity object under the Object Manager.

Create a new page layout and select an Existing Page Layout to clone. Name your new layout as is appropriate, in our example, “Opportunity Screen Reader Efficient Layout”.

3. In the Page Layout Editor (PLE), under Opportunity Detail, make the header for the top section display on the detail page. To do this, click on the wrench icon for this section in the PLE.

Then make sure the Detail Page and Edit Page checkboxes are checked. Repeat this for all sections in the page layout.

This will ultimately make navigation of Record Detail sections easier for screen reader users, as it will add additional headings to the page. Navigating a page by headings is a common strategy for screen reader users.

This is the equivalent of adding small bookmarks at the beginning of each chapter in a book. It makes moving around from section to section much more efficient.

4. Remove any sections, fields, and custom actions from a record layout that your users do not need. This will increase efficiency in moving through forms and record pages.

In our example we condensed from 6 sections and 22 fields to 2 sections and 17 fields.

Opportunity Detail Before:

Opportunity Detail After:

5. Remove any unnecessary related lists from the page layout as well. This can be done by clicking on the delete icons above each related list.

By removing excess clutter from the page, it makes it much quicker for a screen reader or low vision user to get to the information and features that they actually need.

Modify other objects that your users interact with regularly following the same basic guidelines:

Display section headers on the detail page

Remove unnecessary sections, fields, actions, related lists

Changes to Lightning Record Pages

For Lightning Record Pages, the improvements depend on if the users are blind or low vision.

Blind Users

The biggest advice for blind users is to not use Tabs or Accordions in page layouts in the Lightning App Builder. Instead of placing different components in adjacent tabs, just stack them on top of each other. As we discussed earlier, screen reader users often navigate using headings. When components are placed in Tabs, their contents and headings are hidden from the screen reader. This makes it so a user has to find the set of Tabs, then find and open the correct tab, and then look at the component they want, which adds unnecessary steps to their workflow.

Here’s an example of an Opportunity page that is optimized for mouse users. Using tabs on the left and related lists on the right, everything can fit on the screen at the same time without the need to scroll. However, when a screen reader tries to navigate by header, none of the headers for Activity and Chatter are available in the list of headers. Instead, there is a hidden ‘Tabs’ header that alerts the user to the existence of tabset, and the user is supposed to know that they have to navigate to that header, navigate to the set of tabs, and activate a new tab to reveal more content.

Here is a layout that is optimized for screen reader users. In this case not everything fits on the screen at the same time, as our users will be navigating by heading.

Now when a user tries to navigate by header, even though a mouse user would need to scroll to see all of the content, a screen reader user can access all of the headers on the page. This allows for quicker navigation.

To do all this this, make new a Lightning Record Page.

Navigate to Lightning App Builder and create or clone the Record Pages that are relevant to your users.

Remove any tabsets and drag the components to the main body of the page canvas. By default, there may be two tabsets on an Opportunity Record Page: a set with Related, Details, and News and another with Activity and Chatter.

3. Save the Lightning Record Page and then activate it. In the activation modal, click ‘Assign to Apps, Record Types, and Profiles’.

4. In the activation modal, assign the page to the appropriate Apps, Record Types, and Profiles and save.

5. To check that it has been assigned correctly, or to change the assignment, go to the object’s Lightning Record Pages in the Object Manager.

Repeat these steps for any other Object Record Pages the users interact with regularly.

Low Vision Users

Unlike screen reader users, the biggest advice for low vision users is to put all of the content in one accordion in one column of the page. Also, add an extra accordion section at the top that defaults to open, so that none of the components are initially visible. Low vision users frequently use tools to zoom in their screen up to 800%, so reducing the clutter on the page and toggling the display of sections of content helps them navigate more quickly.

Here’s the same Opportunity page example optimized for mouse users, but zoomed to 200%. The majority of the content is offscreen and without already knowing where all of the sections are, it might be difficult to know where to look.

Here is a layout optimized for low vision users. In this case, all of the sections of content are hidden in accordion sections that can be seen at 200% zoom.

To help low vision users, repeat the same steps in Lightning App Builder as for screen reader users, except use the Accordion component in the Lightning App Builder and drag the components inside the various sections.

For both blind and low vision users, it is helpful to make the layout of the components across objects consistent. This includes tab and accordion orders (if applicable). This way, the users know how to interact with and find information efficiently across objects they interact with regularly.

We hope you found this article useful and take this as an opportunity to find out more about, and create a better experience for, your users with disabilities. Consider this post as a starting point for how you can create a more accessible, efficient experience for them. Every user with a disability is going to have their own approach or set of techniques for accessing computers and tools like Salesforce. If you aren’t sure what approach will work best for someone, just ask them. They’ll be glad you did!

If you have any questions, comments, or would like you share your experiences regarding Salesforce and accessibility, please contact us on the Disability Topics Trailblazer Community Group.

5 Ways You Can #BeAnInnovator and Leader in AI

While it may seem that artificial intelligence is a future state, it’s here now. AI is deeply embedded in our personal lives, from the recommendations Amazon gives us when we’re shopping, to Gmail finishing sentences before we’re able to type them! Business is following rapidly, leveraging AI to improve efficiency and customer experience. Salesforce Einstein is already delivering 475 Million predictions per day! And Salesforce Admins are in a great position to lead your companies in this exciting wave of innovation.

We want every Salesforce Admin to be a citizen data scientist, but we know it can be daunting to get started. So we built a 6-video learning adventure to guide you through the first steps. We had a blast with hundreds of you during the real-time Be An Innovator adventure, and we hope to see many more of you join the learning fun. Here are the simple steps to take and some examples of your peers’ progress.

1. Dive In and Share Your Progress

Watch all 6 Be An Innovator videos, follow along in your special Cloudy’s Candies org, and share your progress on Twitter using #BeAnInnovator. Get additional resources to help you along the adventure in the trailmix.

2. Learn from your Peers

Video 1 – Identify the Problem
Fill out the Einstein Use Case Worksheet and share it on Twitter.

Video 2 – Gather Requirements
Prepare to build a solution by gathering and writing down all the requirements.

Video 3 – Leverage AI
Learn how Einstein fits into the Admin toolkit, and when to use this tool over something else like Process Builder or code when you are developing a solution.

Video 4 – Build a Prediction
Get hands-on and build a prediction using Einstein Prediction Builder.

Video 5 – Surface the Prediction
Explore how and where you can add prediction scores in your org to make it super useful for your users.

Video 6 – Discover Insights
Use Einstein Discovery to dive into the data and find even MOAR insights.

What is an Accessible App? with Sunday Parker

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’ve got Sunday Parker, Accessibility Evangelist at Salesforce, to kick off a two-part series focused on building accessible apps. What is it like to use Salesforce if you can’t see what’s on the screen? What if you can’t use a mouse or keyboard? We look at what you can do to help, and how that can improve the experience for all users.

Join us as we talk about how to start thinking about accessibility in your org and how you can get the conversation started. This podcast is accessible! The full show transcript is below the show notes.

You shouldsubscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Sunday Parker.

Abilityforce and joining the Salesforce Accessibility team.

Sunday started at Salesforce about two and a half years ago in technical support for Pardot. She had originally studied interior architecture and design, but she started working in tech after she graduated. “I always feel like I hit the lottery when I joined Pardot because they were such an amazing team,” she says, “it was part of this great organization of Salesforce but we had our own little family.”

“Very quickly after I started with Salesforce, I became part of our first ever resource group for employees with disabilities,” Sunday says, which meant working very closely with the internal accessibility team. From there it was a simple transition to start working with them full time.

The Ohana group for accessibility is called Abilityforce. “Ohana groups are what we call employee resource groups at Salesforce,” Sunday says, “which are different intersections within different groups in our organization.” We’ve previously covered AsiaPacforce and BOLDforce on pod if you’re interested in learning about other Ohana groups.

Simple ways to get started with accessibility.

“Accessibility is about ensuring that people with disability have full and equal access,” Sunday says, “so if we’re talking about a physical environment that may mean ample space for a wheelchair user like myself to get around, but if we’re talking about the web or a mobile application that may mean something different.” A user who is blind and uses a screen reader is going to interact with the web differently, and we need to be sure that we’re building products that will allow them to still use the platform in a way that works for them.

There are a lot of different levels of accessibility, so for admins getting to know the landscape, how do you start thinking about looking for accessibility needs? “The best thing that you can do is start speaking to people,” Sunday says, which means starting conversations with anyone who needs that kind of support within your company. “Aside from that, getting involved with the HR side and seeing if they have any processes in place for employee accommodations or how your organization is welcoming of employees with disabilities.”

One of the first things you can do is test with a keyboard. “Oftentimes, if your application is accessible to a keyboard, it means that a screen reader is also able to digest and interact with the content,” Sunday says. Another basic consideration is color contrast. “Millions of people around the world are low vision or color blind, and keeping an eye out for that high contrast can really help in making the user experience great for everyone,” she says.

How accessibility benefits all users.

On the Salesforce platform, there are a lot of things to think about in terms of levels of accessibility. At Salesforce, we follow a set of web standards called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and specifically WCAG AA 2.0. “This is a global collaboration of folks that have set these standards,” Sunday says, “and it’s really the best way to follow a clear set of guidelines to build accessible web or mobile applications.”

“One of the great benefits of building with accessibility in mind,” Sunday says, “is that it often creates an experience that is really better for everyone.” Power users are able to take advantage of the same features to interact with the web in a whole new way. Lightning, in particular, is built to help support that. “We’ve really incorporated accessibility from the start with Lightning,” Sunday says, “those using assistive technology will have a better experience on the platform.”

Being an ally.

“You do not need to be a person with a disability to advocate for people with disabilities,” Sunday says, “so look out for ways within your company and your role that you can influence accessibility.” Ask questions and get the conversation started. “It’s not that people aren’t trying to do the right thing, it’s just that they don’t know how to start,” she says. People with disabilities are the largest minority in the US, so it’s also a good business move to open up your content to more users.

If you’re interested in getting involved, you can get started with the Trailblazer community Admins With Disabilities. If you’re a user with a disability and you have feedback, please reach out because we’d love to get you engaged in our user research efforts. We’re also releasing Trailhead content around accessibility, so look out for that and get educated.

Love our podcasts?

Full Show Transcript

Gillian Bruce: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins podcast where we talk about product, community and careers to help you become a more awesome Salesforce admin. I’m Gillian Bruce, and today ladies and gentlemen, we are kicking off a very special two part series focused on building accessible apps.Gillian Bruce: Now, when you think about accessibility there might be a few things that come to mind, but here’s what I want you to think about. What is it like to use Salesforce as someone who cannot see what’s on a computer screen? What’s it like to not be able to use a mouse to click through? Those are just two very, very clear examples of what it means to think about accessibility when you’re thinking about apps. It’s a very different user experience. Thankfully, we have some incredible experts here at Salesforce who are focused on making sure that we build Salesforce in a way that everyone can access it. I wanted to share what they have taught me in my journey learning about accessibility, which has been amazing, and I have so enjoyed learning about all the different technologies, all the different considerations.Gillian Bruce: I wanted to take their expertise and share it with you, because admins, as we build apps, we need to make sure that everyone can use them, whether they’re our users, or our customers, or just in general. It’s very important that we make sure that everyone can use our products. Sometimes you’ll realize that if you focus on accessibility and optimizing that experience for someone who maybe can’t see or can’t physically touch the keyboard you’re actually gonna drive more sufficient processes overall for your application for power users.Gillian Bruce: Okay, so there’s your little taste. Get ready, because we’re kicking off this two part series by talking to Sunday Parker who’s an accessibility evangelist here at Salesforce. So, without further ado, let’s welcome Sunday to the podcast. Sunday, welcome to the podcast.Sunday Parker: Thank you so much for having me.Gillian Bruce: Well, I am super happy to have you on because this is a topic that I have just been learning about myself, all about accessibility, and I am so happy to have you here to help expose our admin office to what accessibility means both within the context of Salesforce, and just kind of in general. So, I wanted to introduction you a little bit to our audience with a question I ask all of our guests. Sunday, what did you want to be when you grew up?Sunday Parker: Well, first I just want to thank you for being an ally, and I hope that we garner so many more allies after doing this podcast. I’m really passionate about accessibility. It’s not something that I ever dreamed that I would be doing when I grew up, however I … it’s easier to answer this question of what did I not want to be when I-Gillian Bruce: Okay, that’s totally fair.Sunday Parker: I think I switched off every other year as wanting to be something else, whether it be a firefighter, or a singer, pretty much everything.Gillian Bruce: So, you were interested in a lot of different things. That’s great. So, interested in a lot of different things, how did you find yourself as part of the Salesforce ecosystem? Tell me a little bit about that journey.Sunday Parker: Yeah, so I started at Salesforce about two and a half years ago in technical support, so I was a support agent for Pardot.Gillian Bruce: Oh yes, Pardot a little marketing cloud action, I like it.Sunday Parker: Yeah, and I … very quickly after I started with Salesforce I became part of our first ever employee resource group for people with disabilities, and I worked a lot with our internal accessibility team, and I was able to finally transition over to the team last July.Gillian Bruce: Well, congratulations on the new role.Sunday Parker: Thank you.Gillian Bruce: I know that … so, Abilityforce is the name of the Ohana Group, right? We’ve talked a little bit about Ohana Groups on the podcast, but can you give a brief overview for what an Ohana Group is at Salesforce?Sunday Parker: Yeah, so Ohana Groups is what we call employee resource groups at Salesforce, and employee resource groups essentially are different intersections with different groups within our organization. So, Abilityforce is our employee resource group for people with disabilities.Gillian Bruce: Got it. Yeah, we talked about I think Asiapacforce, and BOLDforce on the podcast, so it’s fun to learn about another group.Sunday Parker: Yeah, and we love all working with each other as well, so we’re all here for the common goal of bringing awareness on diversity inclusion in technical.Gillian Bruce: So, I want to back up just a little bit. How did you find yourself working in a technical support role, ’cause I know a lot of admins, one of the common stories that we find is a lot of us ended up in these roles without a clear, “I want to work at Salesforce when I grow up.”, kind of like we take these weird circuitous routes landing to where we are. So, tell me a little bit more about that specific journey for you.Sunday Parker: Yeah, so I actually studied interior architecture and design, so nothing related to tech, but I started working in tech after I graduated college, and trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.Gillian Bruce: I think we’re all still working on that, right?Sunday Parker: Yeah, so I heard about Salesforce, I worked on Salesforce at a previous company, but I heard from a friend who’s an engineer here at Salesforce about joining and how lovely the experience was for him, and how he thought I would be a great fit, so I applied. I always feel like I hit the lottery when I joined Pardot, because it was just such an amazing team. They were an acquisition from a few years back, so it kind of felt like a startup, but it was part of this great organization of Salesforce, but we had our own little family.Gillian Bruce: Yeah, that’s great. So, tell me a little bit about learning Salesforce. So, you say you started using Salesforce maybe as an end user. What was that learning experience for you?Sunday Parker: Yeah, so I think a lot of folks will align with this, I was kinda just thrown in as a role and as part of that I had to keep up to date with our Salesforce system, and I really never had any formal training, so anything I needed to figure out it was basically just Googling to figure out what was the best way to do it, and I was probably really slow going. I’m sure there are better experts at working in Salesforce, but I never imagined that I would actually end up working here.Gillian Bruce: Well clearly you did something right. So, the platform is so wide and expanded, I mean I think all of us battle a little bit of that imposter syndrome of thinking that, “Oh, we don’t know all the things somebody else does.”, but clearly you know enough and you’ve done quite … I mean, you’ve done an amazing job, now transitioning into this role as well. Let’s talk a little bit more about accessibility. So, what is accessibility, kind of high level?Sunday Parker: Yeah, so accessibility is really about ensuring people with disabilities have full and equal access. So, if we’re talking about a physical environment that may mean ample space for a wheelchair user like myself to be able to get around, but when we’re talking specifically about the web, or a mobile application, that can often mean something different. So, for example, a user who’s blind and utilizes a screen reader interacts with the web differently, but we want to ensure that we’re building products that will allow an individual to be able to still use the platform in a way that works for them.Gillian Bruce: So, that can mean a lot of different things. I mean, you mentioned screen reader, but … and you mentioned having physician space. There’s a lot of different levels of accessibility, so how does one … let’s say I’m an admin working at a large company, I’m still kinda getting to know the landscape, how should I start thinking about how to look for accessibility needs?Sunday Parker: Yeah, so I think if there … the best thing that you can do is really speak to people in your company if you have someone who’s vocal about the fact that they have a disability, asking them about their own personal experiences, if they have any challenges. I’ve often become this expert on all thing’s accessibility as it comes as my experience of being in a wheelchair. I’m certainly not, but I definitely do have that extra lens of my own experiences. So, it’s definitely great if you have someone within your company that you can actually speak to. Aside from that, getting involved with the HR side and seeing if they have any processes in place for employee accommodations or how your organization is really welcoming and being inclusive to people with disabilities.Gillian Bruce: Yeah, well, and I think that lens that you’re talking about is what I’m hoping this podcast inspires people to start thinking about, because I know after we first spoke a while back I started thinking about all of these things, and it just totally opened up a whole new world to me. I had not really thought about what accessibility means, and I think especially when you talk about building on the Salesforce platform and accessibility it can mean a lot of different things. So, when we’re specifically talking about the app, what are some … I mean, even just bucket at high level, what are some basic accessibility things that we should think about as we’re building on Salesforce?Sunday Parker: So, here at Salesforce we follow a set of web standards called WCAG 2.0 AA, it really rolls off your tongue.Gillian Bruce: I was like, that’s a great acronym.Sunday Parker: Yeah, so WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These are set by the W3C, and these are actually industry standards that you can follow that can really help in building accessible products. So, this is a global collaboration of folks that have set these standards, and this is really the best way to follow a clear set of guidelines to building accessible web or mobile applications.Gillian Bruce: We use that here at Salesforce to build our products, but we also want to enable our admins and developers who are listening to the podcast who are also building on the platform to do the same. So, I know we have some great Trailhead content focused on this specific … the whole idea of accessibility and how you can start thinking about it. What … I mean, I think what I would really be interested in finding is, what are maybe one of your … you talked about mentioning to people, talking to people, getting to know them, see what their needs are, what is one first glance thing you can do when you’re looking at your Salesforce app to make it a little bit more accessible?Sunday Parker: One of the things we recommend all of our designers and front end engineers to do is test with a keyboard. So, this isn’t always the case, but oftentimes if your application is accessible to a keyboard it often means that a screen reader is also able to digest and interact with the content. So, you don’t need to be an expert in a screen reader to be able to test your application, you can go through and see if you’re able to tab through and really interact, and that’s a good indication that maybe you’re on the right track. There’s certainly additional testing and considerations that need to go into it, such as color contrast, keeping an eye out for that, millions of people around the world are low vision or colorblind, and keeping an eye out for that high contrast can really help in making the user experience great for everyone.Gillian Bruce: Yeah, I mean, you said tabbing through, I think this was earlier this year one of my colleagues, [Mark Baseman 00:11:45], was giving a demo to a user group and for whatever reason the mouse stopped working, and he had to still deliver the demo, and he’s like, “All right, we’re gonna tab through this.”, and I was like, “I have never seen that happen.” I have never seen somebody tab through Salesforce before, and it was fascinating and he was able to do it, but it took a whole different, as you say, lens on it. It was like, “Oh, this is a whole nother way that people interact with the platform, interact with technology.”Sunday Parker: Yeah exactly. That’s actually one of the great benefits of building with accessibility in mind, is that it often creates an experience that is really better for everyone. So, not just someone who uses assistive technology benefits, but power users as well are able to really interact with the web in a whole new way, or a better way, more efficiently. So, it’s really great for everyone.Gillian Bruce: Now, another thing I think we talked about briefly before this, we didn’t go into details I wanted to save it for the podcast, so Lightning is a relatively new thing in the Salesforce ecosystem. Well, not that new, I mean we launched it in August of 2015, but it’s new to a lot of our users, and Lightning, you kind of mentioned, is actually built with more accessibility in mind than perhaps classic. Can you talk to me a little bit more about that?Sunday Parker: Yeah, so we’ve really incorporated accessibility in mind from the start with Lightning. So, it’s really gonna be the best user experience for those using assistive technology will have a better experience on the Lightning platform.Gillian Bruce: That’s great. When I heard that it made me … it’s another reason to get people to move to Lightning.Sunday Parker: Yeah, there’s definitely additional considerations that someone building on the Lightning platform needs to keep in mind when it comes to accessibility, but we’ve attempted to make that as easy as possible to have that accessibility functionality implemented as much as possible.Gillian Bruce: Another question I wanted to ask you, since you’re one of the founders, I think, of Abilityforce?Sunday Parker: I wasn’t a founder, but I was very much in the beginning of the process of forming Abilityforce.Gillian Bruce: You were there in the very beginning, got it. So, that whole model is about creating a way to connect with each other within the same community, and also build allies. What is one of the things that … what’s a way that someone can be an ally, and how do you build allyship, especially for those who have different accessibility needs? How do you do that?Sunday Parker: Yeah, so I mean, Abilityforce has been a great opportunity to connect with end users both internally, our users with disabilities here at Salesforce, as well as getting engaged with the external community as well. So, we’ve built a lot of allies as well, just throughout various equality summits and engagements, both internally and externally, and what I always like to let people know is you do not need to be a person with a disability to advocate for people with disabilities. So, just look out for ways within your company, or within your role, that you can influence accessibility. If you’re not a designer, maybe you know someone that is, and maybe asking them, “Hey, how are you designing with accessibility in mind?” A lot of times just asking those questions can really start the conversation, and that can be really powerful.Sunday Parker: It’s not that people aren’t trying to do the right thing, it’s just they don’t know how to start, or maybe it’s just not something that’s top of mind. We’re all busy, we’re all working on deadlines, and sometimes we can forget to incorporate those different areas, but it’s really, really important as we’re moving towards a more inclusive world, that we’re not leaving behind people with disabilities.Gillian Bruce: That was said beautifully, and I also think when we talked about … for example, when we talked about tabbing through Lightning to do a demo, sometimes when you’re thinking about building apps in a more accessible way it actually improves the app overall for everyone, even people who don’t have the need because it makes it … I mean, it functions quicker, it’s easier to use, it doesn’t fail on you when your mouse goes out in a demo.Sunday Parker: Yeah, and people with disabilities are the largest minority in the U.S. So, one in five people have a disability. So, these are both your customers that are going to be using products as well as your colleagues. So really, accessibility is a right business move because it’s opening up your content to be accessible to more users, and we all want that, right?Gillian Bruce: Absolutely, we want more customers, we want more people to use our things, yeah absolutely, absolutely. So, you mentioned about building … doing some external allyship as well, and connecting with the external community, what … I mean, I know there’s actually a group in the Trailblazer community called Admins with Disabilities, which is great and I’m super excited we finally have content dedicated to that audience, what are some other external groups, maybe in the tech space that are good to get involved with if you’re interested in anything related to accessibility?Sunday Parker: Yeah so, definitely the Trailblazer community is the best place to start. We’re also trying to get more engaged with user research, so getting feedback from our customers with disabilities. So if you have that, please reach out on the Trailblazer community, and we’d love to get you engaged in our user research efforts, and also keep an eye out for Trailhead, we’re releasing new accessibility content as a Trail module.Gillian Bruce: That’s excited, I mean we love Trailhead, especially on the podcast, and so it’s great that we’re gonna have some content actually in Trailhead for people to access. To access about accessibility.Sunday Parker: Yes, certainly.Gillian Bruce: That’s excellent. Well Sunday, it’s been so fabulous having you on the podcast, but before I let you go, I have to ask you a lightning round question.Sunday Parker: Yes, go for it.Gillian Bruce: All right. No right or wrong answer, first thing that comes to mind, you ready?Sunday Parker: Yes.Gillian Bruce: Okay Sunday, most important question, who is your favorite Salesforce mascot?Sunday Parker: Codey.Gillian Bruce: Codey, why Codey?Sunday Parker: I just … I think he’s just tall.Gillian Bruce: He’s tall, he’s a bear. I’ve given Codey plenty of bear hugs, I can understand.Sunday Parker: Yeah, I mean he’s just so lovable, I mean.Gillian Bruce: I love it. Well, on that note, thank you so much for joining us, Sunday. I so appreciate the work you’re doing, and I’m so excited to continue partnering with you to learn how I can get more accessibility lens happening in my life, and I really am excited to see the community response to this podcast, so thank you so much.Sunday Parker: Yes, thank you, and I’m happy to guide you on your journey in any way.Gillian Bruce: Huge thanks to Sunday for taking the time to not only record the podcast with me, but to really help me understand and guide me through this journey as I learn what it is to think about accessibility in apps. Some of my favorite parts of our conversation is really learning about how important allyship is, and it’s actually not that hard to be an ally. I kinda got intimidated by the term, and the fact that Sunday called me an ally made me realize being an ally is really just asking questions and showing up. It’s not that hard.Gillian Bruce: Sunday was very clear about saying you need to talk to your users, you need to understand how they’re using Salesforce, if they have needs that are unique to them, talking to your HR department. There’s a lot of ways that you can really connect. Now, this isn’t that dissimilar from the idea of SABWA, right? Salesforce Administration By Walking Around. Make sure to connect with your users. Find out how they use Salesforce, find out ways that you can help improve that experience.Gillian Bruce: Now, when you’re talking about accessibility, I also really like that Sunday said there are some resources, thank goodness. So, there are some standards for the industry that you can absolutely access, we’re gonna put those in the show notes, and then when you start testing, some easy ways that you can test for initial accessibility is seeing if you can tab through an app. Pretend that you can’t use the mouse, and see if you can tab through and still use the app. Are there certain things you can optimize? Can you move things around on the page? This is a way maybe you can find an optimized experience, you can set up a custom profile for that specific set of users.Gillian Bruce: Also thinking about color contrast. So, there are standards out there that talk about best practices, but gray text on a white screen probably isn’t super easy to read, for those who can’t see very well. So, those are some simple first steps you can take, there’s plenty more. We’re gonna talk about more in our subsequent podcast next week with Adam Rodenbach, you’re not gonna wanna miss that. But also think about Lightning, if you are a company that may be still using classic, woof … this is another motivation to use lightning. So, Lightning really has accessibility builtin and it’s at its core. So, another impetus, another reason for you to get onto the Lightning experience.Gillian Bruce: Another thing that I think was really interesting is, Sunday talked about maybe if you’re making apps more accessible for specific users you might be surprised to find that actually derives more efficiency for power users. So, maybe power users find it’s a lot quicker to tab through a page versus clicking. Maybe that optimization that you drove for being able to tab through a page is gonna help them do their job faster, log calls quicker, close opportunities quicker. Something that’s really good for driving accessibility can be actually a better overall user experience. It was fascinating that Sunday said one fifth of people here in the US has some sort of a disability. So, we should all try to build accessible apps, because we don’t want to eliminate one fifth of our potential customer base, or one fifth of our potential user base, so building apps that everyone can use is definitely good for business.Gillian Bruce: If you want to get engaged and connect more with our amazing accessibility team at Salesforce you absolutely can online in the Trailblazer community. I’ll put the link in the show notes, and reach out, they’re always looking for feedback about how we can improve user experience for everyone. There’s also great Trailhead content coming soon, I know I mentioned in the podcast it’s available. Well, we have it here at Salesforce for employees, but it’s coming soon to everyone else, so stay tuned on Trailhead, we’re gonna have great content coming out. As always, you can find more great content about accessibility, we actually have a blog post coming out very soon about how you can optimize page layouts for specific users. You can find all that on admin.salesforce.com. You can also find other great blogs, webinars, events, and yes, even more podcasts.Gillian Bruce: Please make sure you subscribe to this podcast so you can get it delivered directly to your platform or device of choice the moment they are released. Oh yeah, and since we’re talking about accessibility, guess what, we’re now transcribing all of these podcast episodes. So, if you are someone who cannot hear you now have the ability to read the content, the interviews, that we’ve got going on in the podcast, and that is what Sunday asked me about in our first meeting, So hey, this is how you can be an ally. I’m proud to say that we now have a fully accessible podcast.Gillian Bruce: You can follow us online on all the social things. We’re on Twitter @SalesforceAdmns, no “i”. Our guest today was Sunday Parker. She is @sundaytakesbart, and myself @gilliankbruce. Thanks so much for listening to this episode. I’m so excited for you to listen to next week’s episode, as well. Have a great rest of your week, and we’ll catch you next time in the cloud.

Use Custom Report Types to Analyze Lightning Usage

The Lightning Usage App is an efficient way for #AwesomeAdmins like you to track the adoption and usage of Lightning Experience in your org, so you can monitor progress and make informed decisions. Having tools like this at your fingertips will allow you to lead the way in your company through championing productivity, and continuing to deliver the innovation packed into Lightning Experience.

Though the app displays critical Usage and Performance related information, it does not cover all the permutations and combinations you may need.

For example:

How do I get a list of all the Users in my org who switch from Lighting to Classic?

Is there a way I can get a list of all Users experiencing the best performances along with the corresponding page names and the performance times?

Can I get a list of all Users in my org who switch from Lightning to Classic along with their names and email ids?

The good news is that you can build Custom Report Types and Reports based on the Lightning Usage Metrics for your org to answer all of these questions and more! You can build your own Custom Report Types based on objects specific to Lightning Usage Metrics. You can also use these new Report Types to build custom Lightning Usage reports, charts, and dashboards. The following objects can now be used to build Custom Report Types:

Taking the three questions/use cases mentioned above, I’ll walk you through how you can create the reports you need to be successful in continuing to drive Lightning adoption in your org.

Use Case 1—Review which users are switching from Lightning to Classic

When we roll out Lightning to our Users, it is important to understand which Users or groups of Users may be switching back to Classic. This information helps us understand what functionality or training would help those Users adopt Lightning. Data about individual User switches between Lightning and Classic is stored in the LightningToggleMetrics object. In order to report on all Users who are switching from Lightning to Classic, we need to build a Custom Report Type based on the Lightning Toggle Metrics object that has related fields from Users records.

Build your new Custom Report Type: LightningToggleMetrics

Primary Object for your new Report Type – LightningToggleMetrics

Object Description – This object stores records that represent every time a User has used the switch button to change their experience from Lightning to Classic, and from Classic to Lightning.

Customize your new Report Type – When you build your custom report type, you can add fields via lookup to define which User fields you want to make available for reports created with this report type. For example, in order to run a Lightning Toggle report that includes User Profile and Role you would add those fields during this step.

Build a new report with this report type: Once you have created this new Report Type, you can create new reports using this custom report type and apply filters and grouping just like any other report. For this report, we will group by Metrics Date and “to.” In the Report Builder, you can group by Metrics Date, Action (whether the User was switching to Aloha or switching to Lightning), and Profile to create a chart grouping which types of users are switching, which type of switches they are performing, and notice any trends by profile or time. You can also display your report details below to see which specific users may be switching often.

Sample Report output is below:

Use Case 2 – Report on Lightning page performance for your users

As you are enabling your users to use Lightning, you want to ensure that they have a good user experience. This report is helpful when examining what pages are most used in your org. With this information, you can customize the pages for the types of users that use them most often. Examining which pages have high exit rates can also help you locate any adoption obstacles and optimize pages that may be loading slowly and impacting your user experience.

Primary Object for your new Report Type – LightningUsageByPageMetrics

Object Description – This object stores data that represents standard pages users viewed most frequently in Lightning Experience and the page load times for those pages.

Customize your new Report Type – Just like we did with our previous Report Type, we can add specific user fields via lookup to this new Report Type. Adding fields via lookup is a useful step for any Custom Report Type creation, once these fields are added to the Report Type they will be available in all reports created with this Report Type and can be used for filters, grouping, and more. For this report, I want to add User fields like Profile, Role, Email, Active, and Full Name.

Build a new report with this Report Type: Once you have saved your new Report Type and made it available for use via the “Deployed” radio button, users can create a New Report and search for Lightning Usage By Page Metrics when selecting the Report Type. For this report, we can group by Metrics Date, Profile, and Page Name in order to create a chart showing which pages have the highest page load times and which types of Users are most impacted.

Use Case 3 – Give me a list of all pages from where users exit from Lightning to Classic along with their usernames and email ids

Now that you have examined which users and types of users are switching from Lightning to Classic, and you have reported on most used Lightning pages and the performance of those pages, we want to learn what specific pages are prompting users to switch from Lightning to Classic. With this information, we can uncover possible functionality or training gaps that are forcing users to switch back to Classic. For example, if your marketing users are switching from Lightning to Classic when they are using the Lightning Contact Page, there is likely some specific function they are unable to complete in Lightning. Once you uncover this information, you can work with your users to examine what is causing them to switch on this page, and if there is a customization or training solution you can provide.

Primary Object for your new Report Type – LightningExitByPageMetrics

Object Description – This object stores data that represents which page a User was viewing when they switched from Lightning to Classic.

Customize your new Report Type – Since I am interested in viewing which specific users are switching as well as which types of users are switching, I will add User fields to this Report Type including Profile, Role, Email, and Full Name.

Build a new report with this Report Type: Users can create a New Report and search for Lightning Exit By Page Metrics. In this new report, they can group by Profile, Page Name, and Metrics Date to create a chart that will display which pages have the highest Exit Rates, and which Users are switching from those pages most often.

Sample Report output is below:

User experience and adoption are important elements of the Admin toolkit, and the Lightning Usage App is an excellent pre-built tool to understand Lightning Usage within your organization. Using these objects and your own Custom Report Types are an excellent resource that will help you drill further into the details of Lightning Usage and identify where additional adoption efforts may help.